I'm the worst blogger ever!!

 This is me updating all the stuff I apparently forgot in our reno, I said I was a horrible blogger.  But I want to make sure it makes it here now.  So this is a HIGHLY condensed time frame.  We really do love this space!!!
Here is the space with curtains, some art and bookcases too.




 Also adding in here that I did finally paint the funny wall in between the bedroom and the bathroom.
August 2011:Here is the wall, there are a few touch ups to be made still (hence the blue tape on one square still) but it's 90% done! I'm VERY pleased with it!! The touch ups there are I expected and will be super easy for me to do with a small craft brush tomorrow!

And I promise it's not crooked in real life!

Taped and painted:


tape pulled off!







Originally done 3/22/2011
 Lookie I have furniture in my living room, I LOVE this room.



second angle:


another:



I should take another picture of the chair closest to me in the picture it's an odd angle swoop thing to it and it's super comfy to sit in and really the special piece in the room. I'm thinking curtains with a thin stripe in them with red somehow.

Originally done 3/20/2011
 Ignore my missing tile, that's the part of the bathroom we couldn't decide on (we're still "arguing" about it lol). Thankfully that's just over my tub that heats and circulates the water so it can go in when we agree. I also hope to add a glass door to the shower someday.





I'll be glad when all the little things are done but I'm just so glad that it's livable that I'm willing to work on stuff once I'm using it (and I swear what house is ever REALLY done?)



Originally done 3/20/2011, and I just realized there was never completion posts.  So they are all going in one if I can figure it out!
We finshed the floor (baseboards still have to go on but that's no biggie). The floor is DOWN!

SO tonight I still have some cleaning up to do and outlet plates to put on and tomorrow we're going to be moving stuff in to the basement. We will FINALLY have privacy again! DH and I really need it and I know my mom wants a little extra room upstairs to hang out too.

I don't have any bedroom pics or bathroom ones uploaded yet but here is the living room

Yesterday, from the window back towards the stairs (you can seen on the right hand side we weren't done):



And today from the stairs towards the window:


We started this project in June :faint: So it's been a lot of weekend work and a lot of help from family and friends but we are finally there!!!

Here's from the stairs to the windows, before we started (the left window is now in the bedroom and both are the same 4 foot by 3 foot that you see in the later pics):

There are walls, sort of.

Some walls at least, and lots more dry wall hanging out ready to be put up. 

Dry wall hanging out against the long living room wall

Bedroom (taken from inside what will be the closet)

Bedroom (wall is to the living room)

Some walls at least, and lots more dry wall hanging out ready to be put up. 

We have some of the best friends and family around, everyone came out on Sunday to help us even though there had been a pretty big snow storm the night before.  Hey this is Wisconsin, if ya can't go out when it snows you'd be stuck inside from December to March.

So the guys (and me some but mostly them) carried down ALL the dry wall that was in our garage, somewhere about 100 pieces.  Let me tell you it is a pain in the butt!  We had to come into the back and sort of make a Y and then go down the stairs.  It works best with a tall person going down backward and the shorter person going down forward from the top. 

After we got it all down there we had to determine what the heck we were doing (LOL).  Randy, Jason and my dad set up in the bathroom and went to work.  Randy and Jason really did a great job measuring (after the first one) and cutting out for the pipes and junk that comes out of the wall. 

From the bedroom closet into bathroom

Sink and toilet (shower is to left)

  

Tub (that heats and circulates water) and shower.

Jerry, Shawn and I got to work in the living room area hanging the outside wall to the bedroom and bathroom.  Of course there were a few snafus but we got it up and drilled on tightly!  Mike helped out tons too, he's more handy than he wants me to think ;)  I think he's been faking to get out of "Honey Do" lists.  Once Jason had to leave it was him and Randy that figured out some issues in the bathroom. 

I love that there is progress but on the other hand I keep thinking that there is still so much more to do and everything is so time consuming.  With only one day a week to work on it, it takes FOREVER.  So I'm hoping we'll get some extra help from a few people now (I think I'm using up all my favors and going to be owing a few more).  We really really need this to be done.  We need the space and privacy.  Did I mention space? 

Looking down towards windows, into bedroom

Straight down to the windows, bedroom can be seen through the door

Living room wall/bed room wall, looking into bathroom.

Day 25

Day 25 - A picture of your day

Here's us working in the basement again.  The bathroom is getting there!  We have doors now for both bedroom and bathroom.  The electrician will be done Monday.  The plumbers are done, we'll set our own sink (seen in the middle of the room right now) and toilet.   There's our nice new water heater in the background too!  That's my big soaking tub which heats the water so I never have to get out, just to the right of that is the shower.  I took the picture standing in what will be my bedroom closet LOL.

I'm horrible at this game...

Sorry I have been slacking badly about updating. I promise I'm still alive.

The basement! Here are some pics of the windows:


1. The Basement is coming along nicely. My dad and brother helped get both the windows in and there is a ton of sunlight down there now. There are two windows, one in the bedroom and one in the living room. They are both 4 feet wide by 5 feet tall.

2. The plumber has done step one and we need to finish two walls for them to get the rest done. I'm dying to get into my heated bathtub!!

3. We're almost done with studs so anyone who wants to help (read PLEASE HELP US!) we will need to set up a weekend for doing drywall. I'm hoping to have the electrical stuff done in the next two or three weekends, so it looks like the end of Oct or early Nov will be drywall.

Me:

School is going well this semester. I'm taking Microbiology, Economics, English, and a health study course. Everything but Microbiology is online and I really enjoy the online options because it saves me a ton of time.

I've been eating well and exercising my butt off (literally). I'm down 18lbs so far and up to 30 min on the elliptical machine 5-6 days a week. I REALLY need to up the weight training but I only have teeny tiny weights and no place to do them all by myself right now.

Gabe:
He's a stinker lately and thinks he's so funny. He's learned some one liner jokes but half the time they come out crazy. "Why did the chicken cross the street" "Get to the other side" But sometimes it's about a car, a duck, a block anything and the answer is still the same. Then we were at dinner the other night and he's wearing bib overalls and my mom tells him that she likes them. He says "I have little bibs and mom has big bibs" Then proceeds to show us his nipples and smack me in the chest. MEN ;)

He has been going sporadically on the potty, mostly right before bed and waking up dry fairly often. Slow going but we're making progress.

Mike:
Uhh he has his own blog but never updates (hint hint) and he should tell you if there is anything exciting going on but he's still kicking.

When did that happen?!

When did I become an adult? Was it when I was excited that I bought a fridge? Or how about when the new windows got installed last week? Oh wait I think it was today when I bought an entire bathroom worth of fixtures and was super excited BUT thought "Dang that was a lot of money". That's when it happened I'm sure of it.

We brought home a new vanity, sink, faucet, mirror and cabinet. Then we ordered the tub and shower and they will be here Thursday. We also went and got a new toilet. This toilet is kind of cool if you ask me (that adult thing again). There are two buttons. One you push for liquid waste which uses less water and the second button for the heavy duty poo (solid waste to be politically correct) which uses slightly more water. I can't wait to try that out...er I mean....

We picked a plumber today. We have a little work to do ourselves before he comes back though since doing some of this will save us some money. We need to sledgehammer through the concrete in the basement and find the pipes that tie into the whole system. We have a general idea of where it is but there's still some heavy duty sledge hammering that needs to be done. I think I need to ask a couple people for favors for this one for sure. Hopefully in the next week we can do that so we can get going on everything else.

This Sunday we're FINALLY finishing the holes for the egress windows as well. I promise to have pictures of that machine, mostly because the 3 year old boy that lives with me enjoys pictures of those things.

I am dreaming of soaking in my new HEATED bathtub, or taking long leisurely showers in the new large shower. It's so close yet so so so far away.

First delivery

The first delivery is now sitting in my garage. Of course they were supposed to be here before noon and rolled in more like 1:15pm but at least it's done. My garage is now a warehouse for building supplies.

We now have proof that we're actually starting some sort of renovation project. We have 165 10ft 2x4s, 2 windows which are 48 inches wide by 60 inches tall, and enough flooring for just under 800 sq feet. The bathroom flooring will be ordered later.

Of course we've been digging a hole thinking the windows were 60 inches wide and 48 inches tall so our hole(s) are still not big enough. Hopefully we'll get started on that second one this weekend... or not. Those nice big windows will be letting a lot of light into the basement though so I am glad we chose larger ones (yah yah people were right get over it).

So here are the next pictures of the project. Gabe was excited and terrified of the truck. He has a thing about loud noises so he kept his hands on his ears the whole time.

The semi front detached from the bed and became the fork lift. The studs and windows came first.


Then the flooring and padding for underneath.

I was quite impressed with that truck up our hill. Anyone who's been here knows that hill is pretty steep. The Uhaul bottomed out on it when we moved in, there's a dent in the driveway from that. I guess what we needed was a semi.

Now I really do need those volunteers that keep saying to call them but mysteriously aren't around when ya ask ;)

The Basement Saga part 1

This really is a saga. It's going to take months and money and sweat, probably some blood too because we know how this works.

I'm hoping to be in my new bedroom after soaking in my new tub by October some time. Am I dreaming? Probably but a girl's gotta dream.

On the Fourth of July while the rest of the world was relaxing and watching fireworks or grilling out my dad and I decided that 90 was a good temperature to dig holes in. We were crazy. We did get almost all of the first hole dug. We didn't die either so that's good, if we had though we could have just rolled that person into the hole and back filled. It's definitely big enough.

There will be a pair of holes. They are for the egress windows that are required for living space in the basement. They'll let a lot of light in too so we don't turn into people that could be mistake for Powder.

I do have a picture of the plans and I'll have to post that later since I forgot to scan it. The dimensions though are as follows: Bedroom 18x14, bathroom 12x14, living space 40x13 (whole length of the house).

I really can't wait until we have a little more US space. The only downside is that we'll be as far away from Gabe as possible. So I'll need to get another monitor. My mom is in the room next to Gabe so he's not alone or anything but it will take some getting used to I think for me.

Without further ado here are the first pictures of the side of the house. The one on the right will be the bedroom, the one on the left is the living space.

The first hole, both will be about 65 inches side to side and from the top of the window to the bottom of the hole is about 52 inches, it's 36 inches out from the house.

The second window and where the next hole will be dug next weekend. That's the top of the umbrella laying on the side. We use it to keep the sun off of us.